Friday, January 18, 2013

Back at the end of 2011, I put this poem on my other blog. I'm not quite sure why it wound up there, but for the sake of consistency, I'm now including it amongst the poems on this blog, which is focused on poetry....Rhyming with Cigars

I'm not a man who frequents bars;
Or thinks it cool to down large jars
Of beer; I've never ever tried cigars;
I don't get sweaty seeing big, fast cars,
And consequently have no scars
From crashing and then seeing stars.
What, you ask, do I live on Mars?
Not at all, I've watched the movie, LarsAnd the Real Girl, grammar I can parse,
I know the name of the Curé of Ars,
(John Vianney), know that Fars
Is a province in Iran, formerly called Pars,
Can differentiate Picassos and Renoirs,
However, I've never finger-picked guitars
In bazaars frequented by Russian Czars.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

I'm not usually given to writing poems about physical ailments, but while the topic in this poem is, in reality, quite unpleasant, it also has its humorous side.

Proctalgia fugax

The condition known as

Proctalgia fugax

is like squatting on a
bed of tacks,

or rather, one gigantic
tack.

PF attacks a person’s
back -

specifically the canal

that’s inner anal - by

cramping up some
muscle, which

don’t make one feel
swell, or well.

Proctalgia fugax waits
till night-time to

perform, waits till
you’re relaxed and

fast asleep, then wakes
you with a

pain that racks, and
taxes your

ability to calm remain,
stops you

dozing, insists from
resting

you desist, says, get up now if you

know what’s good for you!

Proctalgia fugax isn’t good for you.

You’ll come to no harm,
but there’s

no kind of balm that
will ease the pain

as it increases to the
max.

Forget defecting to the
loo, or

defecating in it; PF doesn’t

signal imminent
evacuation –

except from bed, of
course.

Sometimes walking
helps, though

you’re not required to
leave the

house; some recommend

sitting, but on a
tennis ball,

putting pressure on the
perineum -

I don’t think that’d
help at all;

or taking paracetamol by
two, but

PF, say the experts helpful,

once waxed will wane before the

tablets ease the pain. Some in

hot water sit, some ice
apply–

neither of these sound nice

to me, and who wants in
the

freezer ice to find, or
boil up

water, in the dark of
the night?

Women can ignore this
next:

for men PF can rise
when you’ve had

sex - post coitus it will
let you sleep

awhile – then waking
you in pain,

adds insult to injury, now

stands the slack and
rested member

up once more, ready to
bounce

back, then stacks woe on
woe,

puts you under attack both
front and back.

Proctalgia fugax
sometimes

comes by day, whether
at work

or play: transmitting a
fax, or

shovelling the road,
taking

dictation or hauling a
load,

riding a bike,
aquajogging,

feeding the ducks - or
snogging.

But night-time’s its
favourite,

making the most of its
doubling-up

impact to tumble you
out of the

sack, with its pain in
the

crack giving you flak.

Eventually, backstage,

things begin to
assuage:

you return to your bed,
but you’re

restless and hot, and
like any

lurgy that lurks you
are

cautious of aftershock,

your partner disturbing,

who tosses and turns
till you

stomp out of bed and go
sleep on the

couch. PF’s not an ‘ouch’, it’s never an

‘oooh.’ Colonoscopy’s closer or

that horn of a rhino you
saw in the

zoo, goring you. That
might be

hyperbole, but you’d

exaggerate too if Proctalgia

fugax happened to you.

Proctalgia fugax is a
severe, cramp-like pain, deep in the anal canal. It usually lasts for a
few seconds or minutes, but can sometimes last for up to half an hour.
Between attacks there is no pain at all. Most sufferers have only 5 or 6
attacks a year. You may feel a need to defecate urgently, but nothing happens.
It may even make you feel dizzy, or give you a headache. It occurs in both men
and women. The pain often wakes sufferers at night, and men may have an
erection at the same time. Some men experience it after sex. It is a mysterious
condition; no one knows what causes it, but it is probably a spasm of the
rectal or pelvic floor muscles and does not mean that you have anything
seriously wrong. There are various methods of relieving the pain.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

The end of year busyness caught up on this blog, and it's been semi-abandoned for the last few months. The busyness meant that poems in the pipeline had to wait to be reviewed and redrafted and so on. Here's one that's finally made it through the system...